Re: Found images: 2016 November
Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2016 6:40 pm
APOD and General Astronomy Discussion Forum
https://asterisk.apod.com/
Thanks for posting so many great galaxy images here, starsurfer and bystander!starsurfer wrote:NGC 289
http://www.astro-austral.cl/imagenes/ga ... 9/info.htm
Copyright: José Joaquín Pérez
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[img3="Credit: R. Wesson/ESO"]https://cdn.eso.org/images/screen/potw1647a.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]As the Sun sets on another day at La Silla, the observatory’s staff members are able to start doing what they do best — observing and exploring the night sky! La Silla was ESO’s first observatory, and remains one of the most productive observatories in the world.
This photograph captures the last few rays of sunlight, producing a striking blend of orange, red and yellow close to the horizon. More prominent, however, are the bright star trails streaking and curving through the sky. Each of these trails is formed by the motion of an individual star, captured over a long exposure time. Vehicles also form light trails from their rear headlights as they move, lighting up the network of roads throughout the region.
This picture was taken by ESO Photo Ambassador Roger Wesson. To show both twilight and the growing star trails in the same image, Wesson combined 763 different 20-second exposures, beginning approximately 40 minutes after sunset and continuing through the night.
[img3="Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Calzetti"]https://cdn.spacetelescope.org/archives ... w1647a.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]This image of the spiral galaxy NGC 3274 comes courtesy of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Hubble’s WFC3 vision spreads from the ultraviolet light through to the near infrared , allowing astronomers to study a wide range of targets, from nearby star formation through to galaxies in the most remote regions of the cosmos.
This particular image combines observations gathered in five different filters, bringing together ultraviolet, visible, and infrared light to show off NGC 3274 in all its glory. As with all of the data Hubble sends back to Earth, it takes advantage of the telescope’s location in space above our planet’s distorting atmosphere. WFC3 returns clear, crisp, and detailed images time after time.
NGC 3274 is a relatively faint galaxy located over 20 million light-years away in the constellation of Leo (The Lion). The galaxy was discovered by Wilhelm Herschel in 1783. The galaxy PGC 213714 is also visible on the upper right of the frame, located much further away from Earth.
[img3="Credit: Petr Horálek/ESO"]https://cdn.eso.org/images/screen/potw1648a.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]The famously dry Atacama Desert may seem like an odd place for the Moon to take a dip — but in this intriguing image, taken by ESO Photo Ambassador Petr Horálek, it appears to do just that!
Initially high, the crescent Moon slowly descends through the clear Chilean sky, before hitting the thickest parts of the atmosphere right above the horizon.
It was here that a “rare theatre” began, said Horálek. The thin sliver of the Moon was optically distorted into a “weird, snaky shape” as its light passed through layers of different air densities, caused by different pressures, temperatures and humidities. The Moon lost its smooth curves and instead appeared as a rippling and squiggly zig-zag — “as if it were swimming”. The effect of the closely spaced layers in the atmosphere caused different parts of the Moon’s image to be refracted differently as it disappeared below the horizon.
All these pictures were taken at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile, facing the Pacific Ocean.
[img3="Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA"]https://cdn.spacetelescope.org/archives ... w1648a.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]This delicate blue group of stars — actually an irregular galaxy named IC 3583 — sits some 30 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo (The Virgin).
It may seem to have no discernable structure, but IC 3583 has been found to have a bar of stars running through its centre. These structures are common throughout the Universe, and are found within the majority of spiral, many irregular, and some lenticular galaxies. Two of our closest cosmic neighbours, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, are barred, indicating that they may have once been barred spiral galaxies that were disrupted or torn apart by the gravitational pull of the Milky Way.
Something similar might be happening with IC 3583. This small galaxy is thought to be gravitationally interacting with one of its neighbours, the spiral Messier 90. Together, the duo form a pairing known as Arp 76. It’s still unclear whether these flirtations are the cause of IC 3583’s irregular appearance — but whatever the cause, the galaxy makes for a strikingly delicate sight in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, glimmering in the blackness of space.
There are hardly any amateur images of M90.